As mass production has to be accompanied by mass consumption; mass consumption, in turn, implies a distribution of wealth -- not of existing wealth, but of wealth as it is currently produced -- to provide men with buying power equal to the amount of goods and services offered by the nation's economic machinery.-- Marriner Eccles

The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it.-- Neil deGrasse Tyson/2015 (possibly earlier)

There is still a lot of thinking on the right that if big corporations are happy, they're going to take the money they're saving and reinvest it in American workers. In fact they bought back shares, a few gave out bonuses; there's no evidence whatsoever that they[sic] money's been massively poured back into the American worker.-- Marco Rubio (darling of the Right)/2018

19 August 2015

A Well Rounded Education

As is well known, I've not been a fan of Jobs, his Reality Distortion Field, or Apple in general. The fact is, Apple has been an assembler of Other People's Parts from the get-go, just like most of the rest of the small computer (and compute device) sector. Unusually adept marketing is their value add.

The iPhone design patent is especially galling. Today it is reported that USPTO may be willing to revisit the blunder.

Now, in a new twist, examiners at the U.S. Patent Office have had second thoughts. In an August ruling, they agreed to consider new prior art evidence, which led them to a commonsense conclusion: the rounded rectangles design is obvious, and should not have been granted a patent in the first place.

Capitalists regularly rant that bureaucrats are stupid, incompetent, low lifes who should be left to starve in the desert. Except, of course, when their stupid incompetence grants market monopoly. And obscene infringement awards.